Ed Reed certainly deserves to be one of the highest paid safeties in the league, but his new contract -- worth roughly $16 million in guarantees -- means that Ray Lewis probably won't get his last really big payday. (free registration/bugmenot required)

Given the flurry of rookie off-season "activity," maybe the NFL should hold the symposium right after the draft. (And yes, we're smack dab in the middle of summer when I start linking to rookie symposium articles. Just take a deep breath and say, "One month until training camp begins." Lather. Rinse. Repeat.)

The new Oregon uniforms have to be seen to be believed. Could it possibly get worse than the uniforms they unveiled for last year's Civil War game against Oregon State? Thanks to the magic of multiple color combinations, the answer is yes. Apparently, the most popular drinking game at Nike headquarters is "design the Oregon Ducks uniforms." They are no longer the Oregon Fighting Intellivision Men, however, as the coach requested a change in the font for player numbers.

The USA Today is on a roll. In addition to the Jones-Faneca piece, the paper also has a nice little feature on a group of up-and-coming NFL offensive linemen (to read this story, first click the 'Comments' link and then click here).

Inspired by an old Bill James article, Doug Drinen ran a simulation of 10,000 seasons of football to see what would happen. Each year, the 32 teams were given different ratings that were supposed to designate their "true strength." (Somewhat like DVOA, but it's Doug's system, not mine.) Then Doug ran the season to see what would happen. How often does the best team win the Super Bowl? How often does a bad team make the playoffs?

Interesting study here by Craig Depken, an economist at the University of Texas at Arlington, who found that cities in Texas lose sales tax revenue whenever they host a professional football or basketball game -- but gain revenue from baseball or hockey games. The study also finds that smaller cities gain more revenue from hosting Division-IA and I-AA college football games than larger cities do.